Garage Door Maintenance

You may not think garage door insulation is important, but insulating your garage can provide unanticipated benefits that can make this a worthwhile project. If you’re like most homeowners, your garage is the biggest uninsulated area of your home. Not only does this increase your heating and cooling cost, but a lack of insulation around the garage door itself is an invitation to critter infestation and moisture damage. Even if you don’t spend that much time in your garage, you should look into garage door insulation and see if it’s right for you. Attached Garages For garages that are attached to your home, proper garage door insulation can be as much about insulating your home as it is insulating your garage. A metal garage door with too much space around the door can be a horrible conduit for heat loss. Garages, being as large as they are, will conduct more …

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Mold Doesn’t Just Happen Inside Your Home The basics of preventing garage mold are essentially the same as taming any other house mold. Mold thrives in moist, dark, unventilated environments, so you should be able to prevent mold by making sure your garage stays dry, well-ventilated and not too dark. Mold is a common problem in many homes, and even conscientious homeowners can sometimes run into a mold problem. The garage isn’t the first place most homeowners think will present a mold problem, but mold can infest your garage just like any other area of your home. Building a Mold-Proof Garage If you’re building a new garage and are concerned about mold, your best bet is to build your garage out of materials that mold will find inhospitable. A good first step is constructing a garage with metal studs, instead of wood. Metal studs require somewhat different skills and tools, …

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Garage doors lead pretty simple lives. Up, down, up, down, over and over, year after year—until suddenly they don’t work the way they should. Fortunately, that simple life usually makes for relatively simple repairs. Sometimes, though, even reliable old garage doors bite the dust or need major repairs. Basic Maintenance and Quick Fixes If your garage door is behaving well at this moment, you can likely keep it working that way if you follow a simple inspection and maintenance routine. These same tips may also correct problems that are just beginning to appear: Examine the rollers and tracks on the garage door. If you can’t remember the last time you cleaned them, now is the time to clean the rollers and tracks with a good brushing and to lubricate the rollers and axles. The bearings on rollers can also wear out; replace any rollers that don’t operate smoothly. Tighten the hardware. …

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